A new, early-maturing, quality protein maize hybrid developed by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) could provide small-scale farmers with bigger harvests and better nutritional quality. CIMMYT furnished the donor maize parents and the methodology, which ICAR plant breeder Raman Babu used to combine biotechnology and conventional breeding. Babu hopes the new hybrid will improve the livelihoods in the northwestern hills of India, where many depend on maize for food.

“Quality protein maize grain has almost twice the lysine and tryptophan of normal maize,” says Babu, who developed the new hybrid. “The higher levels of those amino acids make more of the grain’s protein useful to humans and farm animals.”

Quality protein maize was developed by CIMMYT in the 1980s using conventional breeding methods. In 2001, Babu crossed lines of this maize with the parents of a popular, normal hybrid, Vivek Hybrid-9, already grown by farmers in nine states of India. He then used molecular markers—DNA signposts for genes of interest—to quickly select the progeny that contained both the desirable parentage of the original hybrid plus the quality protein trait. For this effort, CIMMYT provided donor lines, the methodology, molecular markers, and technical guidance along the way.

“Using this approach, we were able to develop the quality protein maize hybrid in less than half the time it would have taken using only conventional selection methods,” Babu says. After passing national trials in the next one or two years, the new hybrid should be available to farmers at a nominal cost from government agencies that produce the seed.

“The potential for this new hybrid is good, because it’s the only early-maturing, yellow grain, quality protein maize available and has all the desirable characteristics of Vivek Hybrid-9,” he says. In demonstration plantings, the new hybrid produced more than double the state averages of local and open pollinated varieties.

“A poor region close to the Himalayas, the northwestern hills of India house mainly subsistence farmers,” Babu says. “These are people who cultivate less than half a hectare of land and use all the maize they grow, either as food or in feed for their livestock.” Babu believes farmers will initially be attracted by the hybrid’s high yields, but will eventually notice the nutritional benefits and find that their farm animals are stronger and more productive. “Many experiments worldwide have shown the advantages of quality protein maize in animal feeds.”

Source: http://www.cimmyt.org/english/wps/news/2005/apr/qpmindia.htm